I am a Partner with Future Workplace, an executive development firm that assists organizations in re-thinking, re-defining and re-imagining their corporate recruiting, learning & talent management strategies to prepare for the 2020 workplace. I am the co-author of the best selling book, The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop & Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today (Harper Collins) and also the author of two books on Corporate Universities: Lessons In Building A World-Class Workforce.
I have spent much of my career in marketing, human resources, and corporate learning roles and now I consult for FORTUNE 1000 firms. I actively follow and write about mega trends of globalization, multiple generations and social media with an emphasis on how these trends impact the workplace of the future. I live in New York City and enjoy the energy of living and working among 8 million people.

To Do: Update Company's Social Media Policy ASAP

Employee use of social media has been a controversial topic over the past year, and one I’ve covered several times in this blog. While I oppose company policies that unfairly limit employees’ rights to express themselves online, employers must be smart about training employees on what they should and should not share online, especially in times of uncertain job stability.

Consider the case of HMV, the British entertainment retailer. When HMV recently laid off nearly 200 employees, the company left one of them – a Community Manager – in charge of the corporate Twitter account. Followers of @HMVtweets got an up-close play-by-play of the company’s mass re-structuring through tweets like, “Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand,” and “We’re tweeting live from HR where we’re all being fired! Exciting!”

In fact, over a period of 20 minutes, the employee manning the account sent out so many tweets that @HMV’s followers leapt from 61,500 to 73,350.

Clearly, even as employers focus on how to tweak their social media policies and develop comprehensive social media training programs, they must also remember the obvious. If you want to retain control of your online image, remember to change passwords, and restrict access to social pages before you let go of the employees who run those accounts.

Changing Guidelines

If HMV’s Community Manager engaged in this sort of behavior in the USA, she would find herself judged by a clear set of standards recently established. According to a January ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, it is legal to vent about your employer (on a personal account, however) if you’re speaking on behalf of a group of employees and if your intention is to improve the conditions of your job.

The rulings, which also include guidelines on speech that is “offensive” or qualifies as “venting,” are certain to impact employer social media policies. And hopefully that impact will guide employers toward more progressive, open-minded approaches, since the rules stress that “employer policies should not be so sweeping that they prohibit the kinds of activity protected by federal labor law.”

While it is clear that the UK Community Manager demonstrated she understood the power of social media, these tweets will be part of her online brand when she goes to interview for her next job!

Companies still navigating the choppy waters of the digital world should take heed of the NLRB’s new guidelines. Not only will they dictate future labor policies, but the decisions have already retroactively ruled unlawful several companies’ employee terminations.

That’s what happened in Buffalo, New York, at a nonprofit called “Hispanics United,” where several employees were fired for complaining about their workload in a Facebook thread. The NLRB ruled that those Facebook posts fell under the category of “concerted activity” protected by the National Labor Relations Act, and decided that those firings were unlawful. On the other hand, a reporter in Tuscon was lawfully fired, the board found, after joking on Facebook that Tuscon needed more murders, so that he would have material for stories.

More Than Rules, A Strategy

But by not evolving in their approach to social media, companies have even more to lose than a few labor lawsuits.

As I’ve argued in previous blog posts, organizations whose social media policies are too broad often lose the chance to help guide their employees into habits of using social networks respectfully, and even acting as “brand ambassadors.” It is much more effective to offer social media training programs that encourage employers to use new technology for team-building and for collaborating across geographies, while making clear what the appropriate limits are to that use.

In a radio interview with NPR’s “The Daily Circuit,” last week, I explained how the “5 Rs of social media” can work for employees, and these are good starting points for companies looking to establish social media guidelines:

Reason. Simply put: use reasonable etiquette, the same as you would offline.

Responsibility. Make sure that what you’re saying is factually correct, and also that it doesn’t violate any legal guidelines that prohibit revealing information that is material to a company’s stock price.

Respect. What you say online is a permanent record, so don’t say anything online you wouldn’t feel comfortable saying to the whole office – with a camera rolling.

Restraint. Before you hit that send button, pause and reread. If you wouldn’t want that particular thought or contribution forever associated with your name, don’t post it.

Luckily, the NLRB is now pushing companies to re-examine their social media policies, explaining that as the workplace changes, office rules and guidelines must evolve to keep up with them. “Many view social media as the new water cooler,” said NLRB chairman Mark G. Pearce as quoted by the New York Times . “All we’re doing is applying traditional rules to a new technology.”

Readers, have you experienced social media abuses – or restraints – at your company? What stories can you share?

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